Contact Info:

Global Star Software

PalmInfoCenter.com Bottom Line:

The Price:
  • $20
The Pros:
  • Fun game play
  • Lots of action
  • Lots of monsters, weapons, and levels

The Cons:
  • Takes a lot of memory
  • Too easy
  • Awful greyscale graphics

PalmInfoCenter.com Ratings*:
Design:
 
Cost/Benefit:
 
Coolness:
 
Overall:

*Maximum Rating is FIVE (5) InfoPalms



Serious Sam for the Palm OS Review
By Pepper
1/22/2002


Overview
Serious Sam is Global Star Software's first person shooting game for the Palm OS. It  has levels, weapons, monsters, and just about everything else required for a good shooting game.

The Plot
It's a shooting game, so of course there's a plot. And, of course, it means just about nothing. You are Serious Sam, and it is your job in life explore various ancient temples in Egypt, constantly bombarded by monsters. The plot doesn't affect the game much, although it does provide a nice story between each level.

Fighting
When I got this game in the mail I opened the box and was both surprised and amused by the teen rating. I honestly never thought I would see a Palm game labeled as such for blood and violence, but somehow it was decided that this was too graphic for some young palmers.

There's only 15 monsters, which may sound like a lot to you, but for me seeing the same old creatures got old rather quickly. Most of them aren't too challenging, as long as they don't sneak up behind you or appear in huge numbers you should escape unharmed.But when they do sneak up, you'd better act fast or else you'll soon be starting a new game. Although if you're badly injured you can just sit in a safe place and watch your health climb slowly back to 100.

There are quite a few weapons you can use, too. Although the standard gun they give you in the beginning can kill just about anything if you pull the trigger enough times, it just isn't as fun as some of the higher level artillery. Of course when you get the big weapons out you need ammo, and of course its not easy to find. But if you switch weapons both often and carefully you can have a great mix of high intensity fighting and enough ammunition to fight your way to the next level.

Graphics
Serious Sam is compatible with any unit running Palm OS 3.5 or higher, but as far as greyscale use goes, don't even bother. This game was off my m500 not long after I put it on simply because the graphics were flat-out unbearable! When the character stood still it wasn't too hard to see things clearly, but as soon as you tried to do anything the graphics blurred to a point where the screen was practically blank.

As for color usage, it wasn't perfect, but it was far from awful. When in motion the smooth scrolling was amazing, and it was loads of fun to explore the various levels on my Palm. Most of the levels were grainy, and some of them were exceptionally difficult to play because parts had horrendously poor shading. Overall the graphics were surprisingly good compared to what the screen shots had led me to believe.

Miscellaneous
The odds and ends, for the most part, aren't quite as positive as the game play itself. For starters, the game requires nearly two megs of space on your Palm. I know it is becoming ore and more common for Palm games to gobble up so much space, but it doesn't mean everyone enjoys deleting twenty smaller programs to make space for one larger program. Also, the instillation CD is meant for people using Windows. But if you have a Mac don't worry, you can take the files off the CD without a problem.

Conclusion
Serious Sam is a fun game, and although it can't compare to first-person shooters on the computer, it is definitely great in terms of the Palm world. If you're interested you should hop on over to their site, download the demo, and decide for yourself whether or not you want to spend $20.

Article Comments

 (15 comments)

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.

Comments Closed Comments Closed
This article is no longer accepting new comments.

Down

Too easy?

I.M. Anonymous @ 1/22/2002 2:45:08 PM #
The only thing that I do not agree on is that the game is too easy(one of the listed cons). The health meter only goes up by itself if you play on tourist mode, normal and serious mode do not allow the same ease.

Cut down on space...

ssummer @ 1/22/2002 3:40:25 PM #
Serious Sam works great with PiDirect VFS (about the only prog I have found that actually does). I put the .pdb in a PiDirect directory and keep the (large) .prc in main mem. Saves a lot of space.

RE: Cut down on space...
digilaw @ 1/22/2002 8:49:44 PM #
Let me add that it also works with MSmount and Silver screen/OS 4. I put the large file (man it is large) in the MSMount directory and put the game file in the launcher directory. Using this method a huge game takes up no space unless you are playing it. Let me also add that I am using afterburner overclocker so that may be why, when running the game off the mem stick, the game runs very smoothly.

RE: Cut down on space...
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/26/2002 11:21:30 PM #
When I try to run the game off the card, (Main prog in Launcher, big File in /PALM/MSMount) I get a Fatal error when I try to start it...

I'm using MSMount, and Running Afterburner on a m505

Any Ideas ?

Great Game

I.M. Anonymous @ 1/22/2002 5:01:13 PM #
BUT I need a Pentium 4 and 256MB RAM to run the thing! A Palm 33Mhz/8MB 160x160 don't cut it.

When/if OS5/ARM comes this will be killer.

RE: Great Game
digilaw @ 1/22/2002 8:52:53 PM #
I am not clear as to why you say this. The game runs incredibly smooth on my Clie n760. As I posted above I am even running it off the memory stick and still it runs smoothly. What handheld are you using? Is it grey scale or an old processor based model?

RE: Great Game
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/22/2002 9:10:20 PM #
I'm running the state-of-the-art m505.

RE: Great Game
digilaw @ 1/22/2002 11:58:23 PM #
I see, that is strange. Well, as I said in the post above I am using an overclocker. Maybe that would help. It seems you like the game so maybe you should demo fastCPU and see if that speeds things up.

Controls?

geekd @ 1/22/2002 5:02:10 PM #
How do you control it? Obviously you can't use the mouse for your view control like the PC version.

Is it all keys, or is the stylus worked in there somehow?

RE: Controls?
Pepper @ 1/22/2002 6:18:39 PM #
It is pretty much all done with the keys, although to switch weapons you tap in the grafiti area

-Pepper

I love my Palm . . . do you?

crap

I.M. Anonymous @ 1/22/2002 6:52:01 PM #
crap game, not playable

benchmarking???

popko @ 1/22/2002 8:19:18 PM #
Serious Sam for PC is a great benchmark. So I was wondering if there is anyway to banchmark Palms using Serious Sam for Palm.

RE: benchmarking???
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/23/2002 6:35:28 PM #
I got your benchmark right here

Problem with handspring visor deluxe

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/10/2002 8:20:20 PM #
Damn, them. They dont offer tech support. anyways, my prob is when i scroll down to it, when i hit the down button and it should appear on the screen, it causes a fatal error and makes me reset. i tried the full version and when that wouldn't work, the demo! AND STILL IT WONT WORK!!! anyone have any ideas where i can get help or anyone know what the problem is??? thanks
-CJ

RE: Problem with handspring visor deluxe
Coyote67 @ 2/13/2002 5:52:25 PM #
I have this problem too. And its only on the visor, what the hell.

---------------------------------------
When you have a Clie shoved up your mouth, you can only talk in vowels.
Top

Account

Register Register | Login Log in
user:
pass: